Liquidation of companies has been at high tide in Latvia for the last two years. The tally for 2018 reached approx. 21,000 entities, thus setting an all-time record, while the statistics available for 2019 show that more than 18,000 companies have been liquidated in the first seven months alone.

The financial crisis of 2008 affected the economic players more than ever, with the winding-up of a large number of financial institutions worldwide. Due to the specialisation of banks among other legal entities, insolvency is a scenario to be avoided, with restructuring being the more favourable solution.

A set of amendments to the Latvian Insolvency Law and the Civil Procedure Law was adopted on 31 May 2018. The amendments partially entered into force in July, another part will enter into force in 2019 and some of the amendments still require adoption of secondary legislation. The scope of the amendments is rather broad and this review focusses on several of the issues covered by them.

Latvia’s capital city, Riga, adorned with the beautiful architecture of the Art Nouveau period, played host for the first time to an EECC conference, the 14th in the series.

Following amendments to the Insolvency Law which entered into force on 6 January 2017, restructuring proceedings no longer call for the involvement of insolvency administrators, as the prior concept has been replaced by restructuring supervisors.